Biomes! Double Craters! Height ranges! I apologise for shouting! This is totally cool, even for someone as RTS-unsavvy as I am. The Planetary Annihilation developers are very serious about the planets that make up the game’s maps, and have created the longest video ever to show you all the attributes players will have control over when they make their own planets. You know how some trailers and videos have production values? Not this one? It’s just two guys with a game engine that makes painterly planets, and it’s really rather fascinating.Read the rest of this entry »

Planetary Annihilation was undoubtedly one of the strongest Kickstarter projects to have appeared since Double Fine set off the goldrush. A stellar pitch, a cap doff to Total Annihilation, and the tech lead from Supreme Commander pouring all of his ambitions into it: few games can boast anything like this, and consequently this game threatens seismic effects in the RTS genre. The man making that happen is Jon Mavor, and I thought it well overdue for us to catch up with what he was up to, and why he is making one of the most exciting games of 2013.Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, Chris Taylor announced his new evolution-thwacking prehistoric RTS-RPG Wildman, so naturally, we talked about that until we, ourselves, evolved extra mouths so we could more efficiently talk about evolution. But what about, well, everything else? In ye olde year of 2010, after all, Taylor and co debuted Kings and Castles, a “biggest ever” fantasy RTS with dragons, chickens, and hopefully – for the sake of competition – a few things in between. But then it went on hold and dropped off the face of the Earth. So, is it dead along with the “old Chris” who focused on size to the detriment of substance? In addition, we discuss Planetary Annihilation, a GPG-developed, Supreme-Commander-inspired mod platform/operating system called Project Mercury, and why he certainly doesn’t plan on being the first high-profile Kickstarter to fail on the follow-through.

Uber Entertainment’s Total Annihilation-inspired Planetary Annihilation bid has already long surpassed its $900k goal, but is now soaring over $2m, with just hours to go. This means that a huge stack of stetch-goals have been unlocked, including naval units, orbital units, gas giants, and metal and lava planets. $2m means that the game gets a full orchestra-produced soundtrack, too. Amazing stuff.

This is an interesting pitch: nostalgia for an old franchise mixed with a genuine vision for the future of the RTS genre. I’d argue that the pitch video that Uber did for this – which you can see below – is one of the most convincing produced by any crowd-funding attempt. If you’ve not seen it, take a look. You’ll smile.Read the rest of this entry »

I suppose we all knew this deep down, but it’s startling to see it laid out in pretty graphs: 2012 has seen a massive, massive increase on games funding through Kickstarter. Eye wateringly huge. In six short months they have exploded from the eighth most-funded category in Kickstarter history to the second most-funded, and the first-most funded category of the year, having raised a staggering $50,330,275 in 2012 alone. I mean, just look at that graph. JUST LOOK AT IT.

And I do mean in 2012 alone. Look at 2011! Nothing! Pittance! Pennies compared to this year.

That headline may seem obvious, but wow. So Total Annihilation (and, more recently, Supreme Commander) were big, but Planetary Annihilation is shooting for the stars. And potentially shooting at them, as well. It’s all the absurdly large-scale mechanized warfare you’ve (probably) known and loved since the late ’90s, but now you can zoom out into space, build a fort on an asteroid, and then crash it into an enemy planet. So basically, total insanity. After the break, you’ll find a video from Super Monday Night Combat maestros Uber Entertainment explaining their ambitious RTS (ambitiouRTS, for short) and – yes – asking for money.